


Lapis Lazuli

by mythras_fire



Series: Like Something Cosmic [8]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alien Science Research, BAMF Maria DeLuca, Canon Bisexual Character, Canon Compliant up to Maria's hospital scene in 2x13 then AU, Communication, F/M, Feels, Fix-It, Healing Crystals, Mentioned Alex Manes, Michael Guerin Loves Alex Manes, Michael Guerin Loves Maria DeLuca, Pre-Malexa, Sleepy Cuddles, mentioned mimi deluca
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:54:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29346948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mythras_fire/pseuds/mythras_fire
Summary: “Well,” she had to clear her throat before continuing, “the ring under your thumb is lapis lazuli and was a gift to me from Grandma Patty when I was just a kid. Was just barely able to wear it on my thumb until my hands got big enough to hold it on my index finger. It’s a healing crystal that is connected to yourVishuddha, or Throat Chakra, it represents the clear waters of communication, and you’re looking at me like I’m speaking in tongues,” she amended with a chuckle.
Relationships: Maria DeLuca/Michael Guerin
Series: Like Something Cosmic [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1675075
Comments: 10
Kudos: 6
Collections: Maria DeLuca Healing Crystals Celebration





	Lapis Lazuli

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MayGlenn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MayGlenn/gifts).



> This is a cheer-up fic for Maeg, who deserves all the Miluca stories she can shake a stick at 😘 
> 
> Written for the Maria DeLuca Healing Crystals Celebration prompt fic event which can be found in the collection tagged above. The prompt from the lovely Tasyfa is to pick a healing crystal (see End Notes) and write a story around it and Maria.
> 
> Disclaimer: All quotes, characters, and pop culture references belong to their respective creators.

Maria was fiddling with the rings the nurse had let her put back on after they’d run their tests. She had always worn jewelry and it wasn’t all for show. Every piece she owned had an origin story, meant something personal to her, grounded her. Most of them were family heirlooms, actually. Handed down to her by her mother and her mother before her and so on. 

A long line of badass women deserved to be swathed in precious stones, silver, and gold. The nice thing about semi-precious stones was that they didn’t break the bank and held their quality and value over time.

The rings set with various healing crystals that her mother and grandmother had given her over the years made Maria feel connected to them, safe; like they were always there to help guide her when she needed to confide in them even after Grandma Patty had passed and her mom had started spending more time in her head. 

When Mimi gave her the necklace with the blue flowers as a graduation present, Maria had felt protected ever since. It was ironic now just _how_ protected she really had been and from what. Who knew the skeletons in the DeLuca family closet were descended from denizens of another world completely? 

Come to think of it, it hadn’t even been all that difficult to wrap her head around (after the shock and anger wore off, that is) because her family had always been a bit mystical. All of the tarot readings and healing crystals tucked into pockets and sage brush cleansings Maria had grown up with felt as natural to her as the child of a weaver would feel around cotton yarn, looms of various shapes and sizes, and warping boards.

She was pulled from her self-soothing reverie and the worrying of the stones set across her knuckles by a knock at her hospital room door.

Michael was standing there, looking for all the world like he’d rather it were him in the hospital bed. She smiled warmly to coax him into the room and noticed his own thumb was worrying something in his hand. An ornate key by the looks of it.

“Hey.”

“How’re ya doin’?”

Maria patted the bed. “Come sit down. What’s with the key? Oh hey, wait, that looks—”

“Yeah, it goes with that,” Michael nodded at the small wooden box on the nightstand as he slunk down into the chair he’d claimed as his ever since she’d been admitted to the hospital. He huffed out a wry chuckle. “You’ll never guess where we found it, though.”

Maria opened her mouth to guess when all of a sudden Michael’s eyes went wide with panic and his arm shot out to —gently— hold up her left wrist. He visibly relaxed when he saw the charm bracelet he’d made for her still resting against her skin next to the hospital admittance band.

The eyes that met hers were slightly chagrined, from the preemptive knee-jerk reaction she presumed, because the relief she also saw there was unrepentant.

She smiled softly, “I was actually going to guess, Guerin, but maybe you should just tell me.”

Michael huffed out an overwhelmed breath like maybe he was five minutes away from just collapsing in a heap right there in the semi-comfortable-looking padded chair. He’d fallen asleep on his stool more than once in a corner of the bar from exhaustion and what she now knew to be bourbon mixed with acetone, so she was aware that he was fully capable of doing so here, too.

“Apparently, the Manes family keeps their skeletons under the floorboards a là _The Tell-Tale Heart_ , too fancy for a good old-fashioned closet,” he snarked, absent-mindedly rubbing at his healed left hand underneath the bandana he wore like a giant bandaid. She’d never felt it was her place to ask why his hand was busted up and he’d never offered. She figured the same went for his miraculous recovery although at least this time she was privy to the ‘how’ if not the ‘why’.

Her eyebrows rose in surprise. “Whose skeleton was it?”

“Tripp’s,” he handed her the key before leaning back in his seat with another heavy sigh. “Alex thinks Harlan found out he was in cahoots with the aliens and whacked his own brother. Key was in his breast pocket.”

She turned it over in her hand, but with the bracelet on the only aura she felt from it was that of the cold leaching from the metal into her skin.

“So that’s why she randomly turned up with the box. So you’d recognize the key for its significance. Guerin, who knows what else she’s seen, or what I could—”

Michael’s head whipped up from where he’d been contemplating his navel, eyes looking pained again.

“—you know I’m the only one who could have thrown that atomizer away. You would’ve died.”

“ _You_ almost did,” he replied sullenly, sinking down in his chair a little more.

“You risked your life without hesitation to save Alex’s. Can’t I do the same for you?”

Michael glared up at her from under his long eyelashes, snagged in the net of her truth.

She rubbed the smooth surface of the lapis lazuli ring her grandma had given her as she chose her next words carefully.

“Tell me something. Do you have your powers back yet?”

“Yeah, the serum wore off about an hour ago, why?”

“How did it make you feel to be stripped of them?”

Maria knew she must be on the verge of exhaustion herself because the sight of Michael Guerin all hunched down in his chair, glowering at her with his pouty bottom lip sticking out below Nigel the perfect forehead curl, made her want to giggle and this definitely was _not_ the time for punch-drunk giggle fits, sadly enough.

“Like I’d do anything to get them back,” he muttered after a few more moments of impotent glaring that had never worked on her anyway.

“Mmhmm, so can you really fault me for wanting to explore this newly discovered side to my heritage?” She held up her wrist so that the bracelet caught the light. “This is effectively keeping me from being able to protect the people I love in the future—”

“Because using your nascent powers gives you actual brain damage, Maria,” Michael argued, sitting up straighter, his hackles raised by her rebuttal.

“We don’t—”

“Your mom thinks that she might have a chance with Will Smith if he ever stops by for a drink at the Pony on his way to save the world from… oh yeah, us,” Michael tried to say with a straight face, pointing a finger at his own chest. Because they were both so tired, however, their brains just couldn’t quite ignore the sad-but-also-funny nature of that sentence, and they ended up half-giggling, half-trying to stifle it behind their hands, which of course just led to more stifled giggling.

Just then a nurse knocked before coming in to ask Maria what she’d chosen for dinner off the laminated menu on her nightstand, currently half-hidden under Grandma Patty’s curio. Maria placed her order and the kindly nurse gave Michael the side-eye like she wanted to offer him a cot or something but left without saying anything. Maria wouldn’t be surprised if one showed up with her dinner, since Michael had been a bit of a fixture around her room the last couple of days.

“Touché,” Maria conceded once the giggles subsided. “So, come on, Guerin, use that genius alien brain of yours and help me find a way to use my powers without frying my brain, please?” She hurried to continue when she saw him give her his best puppy-dog eyes, which did work on her even if she didn’t like to admit it. “How about we make a deal, hmm?”

Michael leaned forward to interlace their hands on top of the blanket, the tips of his fingers running over the tops of her rings, warming the metal slightly with his otherworldly aura. “I’m listening.”

“I will wear the bracelet at all times while you’re researching how alien powers manifest in humans,” she offered. At Michael’s nod, she continued, “and in return I get to take it off in case of emergency and when we get to the point where you can train me, or more likely, Isobel, since I haven’t exactly been levitating my tarot cards or anything.”

Michael released Maria’s right hand so that he could scoot his chair forward and lay his head down in her lap, her left hand still intertwined in his right. She could tell he was thinking it over because they shared a fidgeting habit and he’d started playing with her rings, his brow furrowed in concentration as he no doubt ran through complex risk-assessment scenarios in his head.

“Deal,” he said a few moments later.

She smiled and began slowly running her free hand through his gorgeous curls, reveling in the fact that they could do this, talk through their problems, make compromises to work together. He made her so happy and she felt doubly so for being able to put a smile on his face, like the quiet one he was sporting right now, his eyes closed to fully enjoy the scalp massage she was giving him.

A few minutes went by in comfortable silence, Maria caressing his curls, Michael slowly worrying her lapis lazuli ring where it was within easy reach of his thumb. 

She thought he’d fallen asleep when his thumb stopped moving but he broke the silence to ask, “tell me about your rings?” He opened his eyes and tilted his head to look up at where she’d settled back against the pillows. “When I first gave you the bracelet, you made a comment about adding it to your family heirloom collection. I—I want to know more… more about your heritage, too.”

Maria blinked rapidly at the rush of warmth that was spreading through her body from the place of contact with Michael’s head and hand. He was going to make her cry if he kept this up.

“Well,” she had to clear her throat before continuing, “the one under your thumb is lapis lazuli and was a gift to me from Grandma Patty when I was just a kid. Was just barely able to wear it on my thumb until my hands got big enough to hold it on my index finger. It’s a healing crystal that is connected to your _Vishuddha_ , or Throat Chakra, it represents the clear waters of communication, and you’re looking at me like I’m speaking in tongues,” she amended with a chuckle.

“You lost me at ‘healing crystal’. Last time I checked, rocks weren’t particularly communicative,” he scoffed.

Maria rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “Guerin, you are a literal alien who can move objects with your brain, how can you snub your nose so easily at twelve centuries of Buddhist scholarship on the concept of unseen energy waves associated with specific pathways in the body?”

“The who and the what now? Twelve centuries? Dayum.”

She softly bopped him upside the back of his head just because she could. “You said you wanted to know about my heritage, cowboy. These rings are important to me, as are the healing energies that they exude, so hear me out, okay? You might learn something. You like to be challenged, right?” She teased.

Michael had the nerve to stick his tongue out at her.

Maria laughed, pleased.

“We should totally do yoga together, maybe a little meditation, get some incense burning, listen to some singing bowls. Oooh and yoga pants!” Maria teased some more, winking at him with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. “Yoga pants are a must.”

“So, about these crystals,” Michael cleared his throat as he squeezed Maria’s hand for a moment in an obvious effort to derail her train of thought from body-hugging spandex. “You were saying…?”

Maria smirked, then obliged him. “Right, so you have seven chakras, think of them… as leaves branching off the stem of a plant rooted at the core of your being,” she placed her free hand low on her abdomen, right above where Michael’s head lay on top of the blankets, “that grow along your spine up to the top of your head.” Here she placed her hand on Michael’s forehead, patting Nigel the perfect forehead curl twice for good measure.

“These leaves are little coiled sources of energy for your body and communicate with each other. You know how when you listen to music that resonates with you so strongly you can _feel_ it in your gut? Like when Alex sings.”

Michael nodded immediately, his eyes having taken on a bit of an awed roundness. It seemed like she’d finally caught his attention. It figured that mentioning music and Alex would do the trick. 

She was very glad to see that even with the bracelet on she hadn’t been rendered third eye blind because she had always enjoyed the look and feel of other people’s auras, and Michael had one of the most fluid, complex ones she’d ever seen. She went back to gently running her fingers through his curls, watching as wisps of translucent auroral colors danced above her fingertips. 

“Well, that’s what it feels like when one or more of your chakras are in balance. You feel a calmness, a peacefulness emanating from that particular leaf on the stem. Since we don’t live in a vacuum, though, not all of the chakras can or will be in balance at the same time. They resonate at different frequencies with the world around them. Too much or too little resonance throws the chakra off balance, and, for example with the throat chakra, we feel that dissonance as an inability to say what we want to say, or even as a sore throat.”

She saw Michael’s Adam’s apple bob as he visibly swallowed, taking in every word. “What about these then?” He lifted her left hand off the hospital bed, kissing the back of her palm lightly before lowering it back to the textured blanket. Maria felt her eyes stinging a little bit at the impossibly sweet gesture and had to sniffle to keep them from tearing up.

“Each, um… each healing crystal resonates with a different chakra. Lapis lazuli, also known as the ‘stone of truth’, connects with the throat chakra to encourage you to speak your mind,” Maria replied, voice a little rough, tilting Michael’s chin up to meet her eyes. “And that’s really the most important part here, the mindfulness aspect,” she really wanted to drive this point home, “believe what you want to believe, but the thing for me is that they’re a positive reminder throughout the day that I shouldn’t let things get in my way for too long.”

She pointed to the lapis ring, “That I should try to find a way to speak from my heart,” then to the amethyst ring on her middle finger, “or that I should follow my own intuition and not let others gainsay me,” then to the citrine on her pinky finger, “or to remind myself that I am a strong, independent woman who _can_ and _will_ make her own way in this world come hell or high water or bozos like Wyatt Long.”

Michael snorted at that. “So that’s why you’re always so well-appointed, instead of a cape you wear jewelry that makes you feel proud of who you are and where you come from.”

And well, Maria just had to kiss him after a statement like that, what with his heart-eyes smiling up at her and all.

***

It felt good to be back behind the bar. To manage the things within her control and not think (too hard) about the things that weren’t. They were going to find a way for her to use her powers safely. Maybe even find a way for Mimi to convalesce a little from the ravages of her advanced power use over time. 

Together. That was the key. Michael’s stubborn genius and ingenuity, Maria’s intuition and willpower, and Alex’s security clearance and badass hacker skills. Together the three of them would be able to conquer all of their demons. Now, if only she could find a way to help her two favorite people in the world get on the same page emotionally that didn’t result in her feeling like a mother hen, that’d be great… 

Later that evening, Michael slunk up to and then around the bar, going straight for a hug, eyes darting this way and that.

“Aww, I told you not to play Valenti at cards, Guerin. You may be the king of pool but I’ve yet to figure out if he’s cheating or if he’s just that good.”

Michael groaned, “That was one time, DeLuca!” into her hair before he released her with a huff and she had to bite her tongue to keep from snickering. 

“What’s up, buttercup?”

“I just uh— needed a hug?” He looked sheepish now and she wanted none of that since this kind of PDA was a bright new leaf he’d been turning over ever since they made their deal in the hospital. She was a woman of her word and he was, uh, an alien of his, and hadn’t even checked in the week since to see if she was always wearing the bracelet, which she appreciated.

“Aww, well hugs for you are always on the house,” she booped him on the nose and made to move away down the bar to continue drying glasses but he caught at her waist and pulled her closer to the store room entrance.

“Actually, um, I came by to see if I could, uh,” he ran his hand down her arms and out to her hands where her rings sparkled in the neon light of the bar’s mirror, not able to meet her eyes.

She pulled one of her hands free to prop up his chin so she could look into his eyes, get a better read on what was apparently troubling him. He didn’t look guilty per se. More… anxious. He was fidgeting with the rings on her other hand, body shifting back and forth in place. She could practically feel him radiating nervous energy from where he stood not two feet away. She’d noticed over time that he felt even warmer to the touch when he was worked up about something. When his feelings were all tangled up and he got frustrated with himself because he couldn’t articulate them the way he wanted to, and he usually only felt that twisted up when he was worrying about Alex. Her hand moved to cup his cheek and he immediately leaned into the embrace, eyes closing for just a moment.

Oh.

“Is Alex okay?” she asked softly, pulling him the rest of the way into the store room, away from the distractions of the bar.

Michael stopped in his tracks and his eyes shot back up to look sharply into hers but his hands stayed where they were, one around her waist, the other clasping one of her hands. “How did you—”

“Still psychic, remember? But it wasn’t even that,” she reassured, “I know you, Michael, and I know Alex. You two have the same tells. Is he alright?”

“Ye-yeah. He’s more than— yeah,” Michael took in a deep breath, let it out slowly. “He wrote a song. About us. Uh, I mean, me and him. And he-he- sang it uh, last night. In front of… everyone.” Michael sounded a bit dumbfounded by that summation.

Maria shook her head in amazement, unable to hold back a smile. “That rat bastard.”

Michael looked like a deer caught in headlights, the same way he’d looked the night they all spent together in the Airstream, actually. 

“He came to see me a few days ago,” she explained, amused by his surprised stillness, “and asked when I was getting released and I thought he’d been happy to hear that I was going home this morning, but apparently what he _really_ wanted to know was when he could sneak into the Pony for open mic night when he knew I wouldn’t be there, or you either from the sounds of it,” she did snicker now. “Guess he finished that song he was working on that I saw sitting at his keyboard last time I was at his house.” Alex’s stealth avoidance tactics when it came to expressing his feelings for Michael had definitely been honed to a fine art over the last ten years. She refrained from rolling her eyes but just barely.

“Yeah, I guess,” Michael had gone back to fidgeting with Maria’s rings, an action that soothed him and amused her. “I ran into Isobel on my way in for a nightcap after tucking you in for the night and we happened to walk in on him playing.”

“So, what was it like? Did he play his guitar for you while he sang?” She smiled up at him encouragingly.

“No, he uh, played the piano. But I—,” Michael traced the faceplate of his elaborate belt buckle with his free hand, a nervous tic she’d noticed he exhibited when he felt chagrined about something. “—I bailed, probably somewhere in the second verse or something. I just couldn’t deal, okay? It’s such a sad story, me and Alex; the song sounded kind of melancholy, and-and Forrest was there and looking at him like he… like…,” he trailed off, gaze forlorn, but he took a deep breath and continued, “and Greg was there and I felt like maybe I wasn’t supposed to be there, wasn’t meant to hear it so I just… left.”

Maria’s heart went out to the poor guy, it really did. She pulled him into another hug, shushing his attempts to apologize for interrupting her work. They just stood there swaying for a long moment or two, breathing each other in. She understood now why she’d always thought he smelled like a river. The rain scent was so much better up close. She rubbed her hands over Michael’s back in a supportive gesture, her rings clinking together softly as she fanned her fingers across the strong planes of his back, stirring up the memory of their long talk in the hospital where she taught him all about the healing crystals most important to her. 

And that’s when it hit her. She rubbed the amethyst ring for good luck. Yes. She had to give it a try.

“You know,” she spoke softly into the warm, safe hollow of his neck, “you don’t have to choose between the two of us,” she felt him tense in her arms, felt his breath catch in his chest, but luckily for her he didn’t pull away, so she continued. “That night in the Airstream, I told you both I just wanted us to be safe. But I also want us all to be happy. You make me happy, Michael. And Alex makes you happy. You should talk to him.”

“You make me happy, too,” came the muffled reply from the vicinity of her shoulder where he’d buried his face in her hair.

“All the more reason why you should talk to him, then.”

“That’s actually the— it’s why I came here tonight, I wanted to um, ask if I could maybe borrow your lapis lazuli ring? I was gonna go… y’know, talk to him, the whole friends talking… thing,” he sounded so earnest in his request, his voice so soft and yearning. 

Michael straightened in her arms so they could meet eye-to-eye but he didn’t leave her embrace. He still looked a bit awed by her seeming clairvoyance in reading his intentions, but he just didn’t realize what an open book he was to her sometimes. 

When she took too long to respond, caught up in her thoughts as she was, he quickly added, “I-I-I’ll be super careful with it! I can put it on a chain if it won’t fit on any of my fingers and I won’t let anything happen to it, I promise. I just kinda, well, need all the help I can get and I thought, maybe if I had a piece of you with me…” he trailed off, looking small and a little bit lost but trying to put on a brave face. Always with the brave face.

Maria felt like her heart was going to melt right there on the spot. She pulled her hands in between them, noting the immediate coolness of the air once she pulled away from the comforting heat of his vernal aura, and removed the lapis ring from her index finger. She giggled as she tried in vain to squeeze the ring onto any of Michael’s fingers but his hands were just too big.

“Shh, don’t worry, I have just the thing, just gimme a sec,” she reassured him when he looked crestfallen that he couldn’t even get it past the first knuckle of his pinky finger. He watched instead as she removed the current necklace she was wearing, a pretty turquoise pendant that had been a birthday present from Liz and Rosa many moons ago. She slid the pendant off its silver chain and tucked it into her pocket for safe-keeping, then slid the ring on and reached up to close the clasp around the back of Michael’s neck, ruffling his curls a bit as she went. She left a soft kiss on his cheek as she slid down from her tiptoes.

He looked down to where it now fell against his ever-bare breastbone and Maria could have sworn she heard him sniffle against the din of the bar outside their little bubble. He worried the ring in between his thumb and forefinger for a moment before looking back at her, eyes a bit glassy, a shy smile gracing his lips.

“I guess this is the kind of thing that Sanders was trying to tell me about currying favors, trading credit back and forth until you get stuck with somebody forever. Thanks, Maria.”

“Wise man,” Maria returned his glassy-eyed smile. “And you’re welcome. Now go make that sneaky best friend of mine play his song for you in its entirety and then tell me all about it when you come over tomorrow for dinner,” she instructed as she started pulling him back out into the bar with her. “My mom’s been feeling a little bit more like her old self and she’s making fajitas, one of my favorites!”

Michael let himself be pulled out of the room but when she turned around at the counter he slid up behind her and whispered in her ear, “I love you,” before sidling out of the bar without a backward glance, black Stetson at home on top of his curls.

Maria idly rubbed at the place on her index finger where she wore her lapis lazuli ring, a sublime feeling rippling out from _Anahata_ , her heart chakra. She couldn’t wait for him to come over the next day. She had _lots_ of credit that she wanted to trade in and forever sounded like reasonable terms.

**Author's Note:**

> The crystals mentioned in the prompt are based on this nice, concise page about [12 Healing Crystals](https://helloglow.co/12-healing-crystals-and-their-meanings/) and I also used this related page here for my research on the [Seven Chakras.](https://helloglow.co/guide-to-chakras/)


End file.
